Eastern Europe builds walls to isolate from neighborly Russia

All Eastern Europe - from Ukraine to Poland and Bulgaria - is experiencing the renaissance of the idea of the "Soviet-style" Iron Curtain: three countries are erecting border fencing.

According to journalists at Independent, the Bulgarian authorities are erecting a fence with razor wire on the border with Turkey. According to Sofia, the purpose of the construction is to stop the flow of refugees from the Middle East and Africa, as well as to prevent possible entry of insurgents from Syria and Iraq into the country, Joinfo.ua reports referring to Independent.

Meanwhile, Polish authorities intend to build six 50-meter observation towers under Gdansk along the border with the Kaliningrad region. Construction of facilities will cost £ 2.5m and is 75% funded by the European Union. As the newspaper writes, Warsaw sees how Moscow is "strenuously arming" Kaliningrad. Back in the early spring the Kremlin announced the deployment of the Iskander ballistic missiles in the region, and this step was taken quite seriously by Poland and the Baltic states.

Independent also stressed that the "Great Wall of Ukraine" did not contain any stone or brick, however, the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko called the construction of the fence as "a priority". The purpose of the project is simple – "to keep Russia out and would-be secessionists in."

According to the publication, 2 years ago, the Ukrainians did not need such a project, but times have changed. The first stretch of the wire fencing is already built in Kharkiv. However, the eventual plan is to create something much larger in scale: a boundary to run the length of Ukraine's eastern land border with Russia. According to preliminary estimates, the construction of the wall will take 3-4 years and $ 500 million.